Title: Lost To The Desert Warrior

Author: Sarah Morgan

eBook

Pages: 185 (However, on my phone/reading app the story ended on page 144 with an excerpt for another book following it.)

Publisher: Harlequin

ISBN: 9781460318287

Release Date: According to the Copywrite the date is 2013, but it looks as though the eBook was released in 2023.

Book Details: As this was an eBook, you can customize your reading experience.

Where To Find It: I got my copy at Barnes and Noble.

Time that the story takes place? Present day.

POV? Third person.

What caught your eye? I was shopping for one book and at the bottom of the page, this book was suggested to me. I literally had no idea that Sarah Morgan wrote Harlequin Presents books.

Did you enjoy it? Is there a better word than enjoy? I LOVED this book!!!

Was it predictable? No, not one tiny little bit was it predictable. 

Was it sexy? Tame? It was beyond sexy. It was on a different realm than sexy.

Did you find it funny? Entertaining? Smile worthy in places, but nothing laugh out loud funny. Extremely entertaining. 

Would you read it again? Oh yeah.

Is this part of a series? The Private Lives of Public Playboys, and it appears to be the last in the series. Naturally. The other two books are: A Night of No Return and Woman in a Sheik’s World.

The best things come to you when you’re not looking for them, and this was certainly true for this book. As stated above, I had no idea, zero clue, that Sarah Morgan wrote any Harlequin Series books. Seriously, my mind was blown when I saw this. A few years ago, I’d gotten an ARC at the bookshop I worked for, and naturally it was the second in the series, but I loved loved loved, Sunset in Central Park. I couldn’t say enough about that book, yet for whatever reason, no one really paid attention to this masterpiece—and I mean just in my circle, in your circle, it might have been different.

But here’s the thing, gentle reader, this book? Lost to the Desert Warrior . . . it was probably the best book I’ve read this year. I mean that sincerely, this book was just AMAZING. It was beyond amazing. 

I just finished it about an hour ago, and I still can’t believe how much life and feeling Sarah Morgan managed to effortlessly pack into a mere 144 pages. There’s just no way, supernatural forces must be at play, because, damn.

Our fearless—and I do mean fearless—Leading Lady is Layla, daughter to the Sheik, is on the run to keep from being forced into marriage with the Sheik’s successor, Hassan. 

“Hassan must marry Layla. It is the only way the people will accept him as ruler of Tazkhan.”

As the moment that news of the Sheik’s death is announced, the rightful ruler, Raz, will heading their way to reclaim his thrown. Hassan plans to marry Layla within the next few hours and will send Layla’s younger sister, Yasmin, to America. 

And Layla? She’s getting the hell out of there. Now, tonight. She packs up her sister, grabs two books from the library, gets on a horse that she has no idea how to ride and points that animal towards the desert and off they go, in search of Raz.

Naturally, the escape doesn’t go entirely a planned. Yasmin falls off and is lost to the desert and Layla is captured by Raz’s men. I should note that in her manic attempt to escape the palace, Layla has dressed in her father’s robes and the men assume at first that this is a boy coming to infiltrate the camp.

Raz of course isn’t eager to hear what Layla has to say—even after he brings her into his private tent for a chat as he knew at once this was a woman in man’s clothing. He’s not all that keen to trust her either. However, Layla’s proposal of marriage makes sense to Raz: Marry her before Hassan can find her and take over the lands. If Raz marries her, it will stop Hassan and secure Raz’s position as the rightful ruler.

The amount of detail in this book is staggering. It would be near impossible to give a proper review without giving away so much of the plot. Because not only do we have this marriage of necessity and survival, we have jealous rivals, political figures eager to get put into place, a missing sister, we’ve got this shockingly tender yet extremely sexy relationship budding between the two leads.

And I say shockingly tender because Raz is truly a lovely man. He’s not some macho power hungry dude who knows he’s all that and a bag of chips, this is a fully formed “normal” guy. Sure, he’s a wealthy and powerful sheik who cares about his people. And yeah, he didn’t want to marry Layla, not after having lost his wife to a violent attack, and vowing never to marry again. However, as Layla points out, it’s the only way to secure his position and keep Hassan from assuming power. More than once, he concedes to Layla’s insight and wisdom. He actually wants to hear from her. He wants to talk to her. He does value her opinion.

The conversations between Raz and Layla are probably one of the best things in this book. You can see why and how they are falling in love. The amount of respect between them is just heart melting. 

Now, one of the things that annoys me in a great many of the books of today is how quickly the leads will fall into bed together. Two people literally just met and now we’re in bed . . . it’s just . . . damn, did you all get each other’s last name before the action took place?

In this case, time is of the essence and so when Raz and Layla come together right after the marriage takes place, I wasn’t put off by it. It’s handled with such care and the cold reality of, “we have to have sex to seal this deal,” isn’t really looming over them. We all know The Sex must happen now, but it never feels like a duty to be fulfilled.

While I found this book rather erotic in places, it is oddly one of the cleanest books I’ve read in a good long while. There’s no swearing, no crude descriptions of select body parts, no questionable positions that would make you want to consult a trusted colleague about.

It’s sexy, romantic, intriguing, action packed, and just damn good. It’s so good that I was bemoaning to my dear husband that as the book was published in 2013, it’s kind of hard to get physical copies now. My man lives for the hunt and I don’t have just one copy of this book heading our way, but two. He found the American and European version of this book and got them both.

But absolutely put this one on your TBR pile, the eBook is available if you can’t find the hardcopy. This was just an incredible read that left me wanting more!

* Bless the wonder that is my husband for finding me stuff in the deep corners of the web. Bit of a prince my husband is. As you can see, both versions of the book have arrived.

**I also discovered while researching this title, that there is a Manga version of this. I’m trying to be strong, we all know that reading the Manga version of a Harlequin Book has not worked out for me in the past. But . . . I have this need to have every form of this book. Be strong, be strong, be strong!!